The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a five year holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into AFLAC Inc (NYSE: AFL)? Today, we examine the outcome of a five year investment into the stock back in 2015.

AFL 5-Year Return Details

Start date:

05/14/2015

$10,00005/14/2015

$11,25405/13/2020

End date:

05/13/2020

Start price/share:

$31.89

End price/share:

$31.99

Starting shares:

313.58

Ending shares:

351.81

Dividends reinvested/share:

$4.69

Total return:

12.54%

Average annual return:

2.39%

Starting investment:

$10,000.00

Ending investment:

$11,254.23

The above analysis shows the five year investment result worked out as follows, with an annualized rate of return of 2.39%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 5 years ago into $11,254.23 today (as of 05/13/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 12.54% (something to think about: how might AFL shares perform over the next 5 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

Beyond share price change, another component of AFL’s total return these past 5 years has been the payment by AFLAC Inc of $4.69/share in dividends to shareholders. Automatic reinvestment of dividends can be a wonderful way to compound returns, and for the above calculations we presume that dividends are reinvested into additional shares of stock. (For the purpose of these calcuations, the closing price on ex-date is used).

Based upon the most recent annualized dividend rate of 1.12/share, we calculate that AFL has a current yield of approximately 3.50%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of 1.12 against the original $31.89/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 10.98%.

One more investment quote to leave you with:“Your investor’s edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It’s something you already have. You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies or industries you already understand.” — Peter Lynch